Poisonous Pastime

The Health Risks of Shooting Ranges and Lead to Children, Families,
and the Environment

Section One: Lead, Environmental Pollution, and Health Hazards

"Until fairly
recent years, most shooters wore no hearing protection. As a result,
most shooters over 40 have some hearing loss. For many, it is a very
significant and noticeable hearing loss. Most of us didn't know how
much damage we were incrementally inflicting on ourselves. There was
little or no warning about the danger to our health years ago. The same
is true with the lead problem. We fired round after round, match after
match, without realizing what lead could do to us."—Joseph P. Tartaro, Second Amendment Foundation news release, January
10, 1998

Shooting ranges
are of two basic types. Indoor ranges are usually restricted to the
use of handguns or lower caliber rifles—such as the .22s used by many
school rifle teams—shooting at relatively short range. Outdoor ranges
allow use of a wider variety of long guns: shotguns for skeet, trap,
and "sporting clays,"e and higher-powered rifles for target shooting
at longer ranges.

Both types of ranges
share a common problem—lead. Most ammunition used at ranges is made
of lead. Although no records on ammunition production are kept in the
United States, it has been estimated that between 400 and 600 tons of
lead are used each day to make bullets and "a high proportion of it
is left to clutter up shooting ranges."4 It is no wonder, then, that
numerous studies—since at least the 1970s—have documented that outdoor
shooting ranges are major sources of lead pollution in the environment,
and that indoor shooting ranges are significant sources of lead
poisoning among people who use them.f

The danger of lead
poisoning extends not only to those who shoot in indoor firing ranges.
It also reaches the shooters' families (especially children), and third
parties, such as construction workers whose jobs bring them into contact
with shooting ranges, and persons who share the building, such as children
in a school in which a range is located.

Smith & Wesson Catalog,
1992, pp. 29, 30

Lead poisoning has long been known to cause terribly debilitating and
sometimes fatal effects on one's body. But there is a growing body of
evidence that the neurological damage that lead causes also helps cause
violent criminal behavior, perhaps even "rampage" killings.5 Ironically,
overexposure to lead at shooting ranges may therefore cause some violent
gun crime.

Lawsuits and regulatory
action already have closed some shooting ranges because of the health
risks and environmental pollution problems they pose.6 Nevertheless,
many ranges continue to operate as silent hazards, with little or no
health and environmental protection measures. Their owners and operators
are either ignorant of the effects of their businesses, or simply hoping
that their users, their neighbors, and their employees will remain ignorant
of the threat to their health.

Lead—An Extraordinarily Toxic Element

Effects on
Human Beings. Lead is a highly potent toxic element that attacks
many different body organs and systems, including the blood-forming,
nervous, urinary, and reproductive systems.7 It is especially dangerous
to fetuses and young children. Unlike other metals such as zinc or iron,
lead has no known useful function in the body. Lead taken in large enough
doses can cause brain damage—leading to seizures, coma, and death in
a matter of days. Although the good news is that such short-term, extreme
overdoses are rare, the bad news is that chronic overexposure to lower
levels of lead simply causes these and other serious health impairments
to develop over a longer period of time.

Human beings can
be exposed to lead from breathing air, drinking water, eating food,
or ingesting dust or soil that contains lead dust or particles of lead.
The effects of lead are the same no matter how it gets into the body,
although how the body processes lead ingested in different ways varies.
For example, most of the lead inhaled into the lungs moves into the
blood stream, where it is circulated throughout the body and stored
in various body organs, tissues, and bone. On the other hand, very little
lead that is swallowed by adults enters the blood stream. However,
much more lead that is swallowed by children enters the bloodstream
than in adults, and children are much more prone to this form of ingestion.

Although some of
the lead in the bloodstream is filtered out and excreted from the body,
the remainder is stored, most of it in bone but some also in soft tissues.
The level of this stored lead increases with chronic exposure. The victim
may not be aware of it, since there is often no "bright line" at which
obvious symptoms appear,g but he or she is slowly being poisoned, suffering
long-term, chronic, and irreversible damage.

The effects of lead
poisoning include: damage to the brain and central nervous system; kidney
disease; high blood pressure; anemia; and damage to the reproductive
system, including decreased sex drive, abnormal menstrual periods, impotence,
premature ejaculation, sterility, reduction in number of sperm cells,
and damage to sperm cells resulting in birth defects, miscarriage, and
stillbirth.

Effects on
women and children. Lead is particularly harmful to the rapidly
developing brains and nervous systems of fetuses and young children.
This harm has been well-studied in actual human cases, not mere theoretical
calculations, animal studies, or academic conjecture.8

Most strikingly,
the level of lead known to be toxic to children has shifted downward
since the 1970s as health investigators have developed more sensitive
instruments and better study designs. Also, children are at a higher
risk because they normally have more hand-to-mouth activity than adults
(thus ingesting lead-contaminated dust, for example) and because their
bodies absorb lead more readily than adult bodies. Because multiple
low-level lead input can result in significant overexposure, it is often
difficult to pinpoint all the sources contributing to a given child's
overexposure. Contaminated house dust is known to be a major source.
"Take-home" exposure to children also results when adults launder contaminated
clothing with the rest of the family's wash, track in dust, or bring
contaminated materials home.

Unfortunately, like
adults, most lead-poisoned children do not exhibit obvious symptoms.
Their protection hinges on vigilant parents and aggressive public health
authorities. Nevertheless, these poisoned children suffer a particular
harm that will handicap them for life—lowered intelligence. A number
of studies have shown conclusively that children's IQ scores are inversely
related to lead exposure. Moreover, the decrease in IQ scores has a
direct and serious practical impact: a substantial increase in the number
of children with severe intellectual deficits and a decrease in children
with superior skills.

"It makes you stupid,"
in the words of one lead testing expert, and the damage is irreversible.9

Catalog, Browning
Arms Company, 1997

These effects on children and fetuses are logically of grave concern
to women who are, or plan to become, mothers. In addition to the fertility
problems described in the preceding section, it is known that lead crosses
the placental barrier and puts developing fetuses at severe risk. Children
born of parents either of whom were exposed to excess lead levels are
more likely to have birth defects, mental retardation, behavioral disorders,
or die within their first year.10

Lead Poisoning
and Criminal Behavior. Perhaps the most ironic and problematic
concern of lead poisoning in the context of firearms is a growing body
of evidence that lead poisoning, particularly in childhood, may be a
cause of violent criminal behavior in some individuals.11 The point of
this body of evidence is not that every person exposed to lead becomes
a violent criminal, any more than every smoker contracts lung cancer.
Rather it is that there is a scientifically demonstrable relationship
between lead poisoning and criminal behavior, just as there is between
smoking and lung cancer.12

For example, Dr.
Deborah Denno, a sociologist and professor at Fordham Law School, conducted
a comprehensive, landmark study of the relationship between lead and
violence among young boys.13 "Lead had its own independent effect on delinquency
and adult criminality, separate from IQ," said Dr. Denno.14

Dr. Herbert L. Needleman,
a psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, conducted
another study of 301 boys in public school and reached similar findings.15
Dr. Needleman explained the connection this way:

I'm not saying
that lead exposure is the cause of delinquency. It is a cause and
one with the biggest handle to prevention. Lead is a brain poison
that interferes with the ability to restrain impulses. It's a life
experience which gets into biology and increases a child's risk for
doing bad things.16

Even if the poisoning
and original misbehavior may happen in childhood, its effects often
continue into adulthood.17 Indeed, at least one researcher has suggested
that lead poisoning may have contributed to James Huberty's 1984 shooting
rampage at a McDonald's restaurant in California, and linked Huberty's
high lead levels in his blood to his handling guns and visiting shooting
ranges.18 Clearly, there is substantial cause to conduct further research
into links between lead poisoning associated with firearms and rampage
killings.

Effects on
Wildlife. Lead has devastating effects on wildlife that mistake
lead shotgun pellets for food or grit and ingest it. Ducks and geese,
for example, "deliberately swallow small bits of stone and gravel to
help grind up food in their gizzards."19 When this grit contains lead,
the result is lead poisoning and a slow and agonizing death. "You see
them walking with drooping wings and they can't fly," an Illinois veterinarian
said recently. "It really is a terrible death because it's very slow
and gradual."20

Waterfowl have been
most directly impacted historically—from 1.5 to 2.5 million died every
year from lead poisoning until 1991, when the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
banned use of lead shot for hunting them. But other avian species, ranging
from songbirds to bald eagles, are also poisoned by ingesting lead shot
directly or in their prey.21 In any case, the lead shot ban does not extend
to other forms of hunting or to target shooting. In addition, in 1997
a source in the ammunition industry said that about 20 percent of American
hunters still use lead in defiance of the ban—the result is that about
300,000 ducks and geese are still poisoned each year by lead shot.22

Sources of Lead at Shooting Ranges

Exposure to lead
poisoning in indoor firing ranges comes primarily from inhaling lead
particles suspended in the air in the range (although it may also be
ingested orally, with contaminated food for example). These particles
come principally from ignition of the primer, which contains lead styphnate,h
from microscopic lead particles scraped off the bullet as it passes
through the gun barrel, and from lead dust created when the bullet strikes
the target or the backstop behind the target.23

Pollution from outdoor
ranges comes primarily from spent shotgun pellets and rifle bullets,
including materials fired into backstops, called "berms," or out over
waterways. According to Sports Afield, "the quantity of recreational
lead deposited in the environment is enormous. For example, at some
trap and skeet ranges, lead shot densities of 1.5 billion pellets per
acre have been recorded. That's 334 pellets in every square foot."24 (This
massive pollution at shooting ranges is entirely separate from another
question, posed by a U.S. Forest Service official at a gun industry
shooting range symposium, of "where the lead is going for the millions
of shooters who currently are not using established ranges," but are
instead shooting on open public land.25)

Another source of
airborne lead for some range shooters is casting their own lead bullets
by pouring molten lead into molds of the appropriate size for the caliber
bullet desired. Although beyond the scope of this study, a number of
sources warn that this practice can cause serious lead poisoning.26 Melting
lead produces a fume which can remain airborne for several hours, is
easily inhaled, and can contaminate surfaces.27 The director of a New
Hampshire occupational health center said some of the worst cases of
lead poisoning he has seen have been in people who make their own bullets,
and warned of "an amazing lack of awareness" of the danger. "That's
a wonderful way to poison not only yourself but members of your family,"
said another state health official.28

Indoor Shooting Ranges

Indoor shooting
ranges have been identified as serious lead poisoners since at least
the mid-1970s, documented in a string of studies by public health authorities.29
Although an official of a major shooting range supply company attacked
the early warnings as "lead-intoxication hysteria" in a 1976 issue of
The Police Chief magazine,30 no serious challenge has been mounted
to the growing body of science underlying the indisputable fact that
lead poisoning is a serious threat to health at indoor shooting ranges.i

An NRA official
speaking in 1990 said, "Lead contamination directly contributed to closing
hundreds of indoor ranges in the last 20 years."31 Nevertheless, indoor
shooting ranges continue to appear regularly in public health records
and news stories as major offenders for lead poisoning. For example,
the California Department of Health Services reported that, among commercial
industries, indoor firing ranges had the largest number of lead poisoning
cases as recently as 1993 and 1994.32 Problems with lead overexposure
also continue to be regularly seen at law enforcement firing ranges33
and at both active and abandoned firing ranges located within school
buildings. But most privately operated firing ranges (shooting clubs,
for example) are completely unregulated by public health authorities,
even though they present major health problems for their staff and users.

Guns & Ammo,
April 2001, p. 81

It should also be noted that most indoor shooting ranges, like any small
business dealing with toxic materials, are subject to a wide range of
state and local health and safety regulations, such as special health
and safety provisions of building codes, and special procedures for
containing and cleaning up lead waste (such as being sure that plumbing
connections do not discharge lead waste into waters).34

A wide fan
of risk. The risk of lead poisoning begins most acutely with
firearm instructors, other range employees, and individual shooters,
all of whom may inhale lead dust or fumes while shooting or engaging
in other activities such as cleaning firearms, handling spent casings,
or cleaning bullet traps and the range itself.35 The risk then fans out
widely over a surprising range of third parties who are not participants
in the "shooting sports."

Risk to direct
participants. It is logical that, as even the pro-gun Second
Amendment Foundation warns, "the people at the highest risk are those
with the greatest and most consistent exposure to the ambient lead—range
officers, coaches, and those attempting to remove lead from a range
without proper safety gear and equipment."36

Although the greater
part of the indoor firing range lead problem appears to be chronic exposure
over time, there are several reported cases of catastrophic effects
due to intensive short-term exposure. For example, a police firearms
instructor in New Hampshire died in his sleep of acute respiratory failure
following exposure to lead dust and gases during a five-day training
course at an indoor firing range.37 At least one shooting range employee
in the same state was also diagnosed as having suffered a chronic lung
disease from a single day's intensive exposure. The employee cleaned
up lead dust deposits wearing only a painter's mask, after members of
a security firm spent a day of heavy shooting at the range.38

Maintenance employees
are at especially high risk if proper procedures are not followed. The
highest blood lead levels ever recorded by the Baltimore City Health
Department (as of 1988) were in an attendant who regularly swept up
in an amusement park shooting gallery.39 A 17-year-old part-time employee
at an indoor rifle range developed abdominal pain within one month's
employment, and vomiting, severe abdominal pain, and constipation after
five months.40 Unfortunately, as California authorities have observed,
"many ranges contract out range cleanup to other firms that may be even
less aware of the potential for lead poisoning in this industry."41

Standard users of
indoor shooting ranges are also at risk. Officials at the California
Occupational Lead Poisoning Prevention Program currently report seeing
elevated blood lead levels "among recreational and competitive shooters."42
A doctor at Boston's Children's Hospital reported in 1999 the cases
of four adolescent girls with elevated lead blood levels, all of whom
were competitive shooters at an indoor firing range.43 A public health
doctor in London reported in 1994 that three out of four regular shooters
at a Manchester range had lead blood levels so high that six-month monitoring
of their blood levels would have been required had the exposure resulted
from working in industry.44

Cover, Insights,
January 1998

A landmark study in Colorado dramatically demonstrated the risks to
indoor range shooters. After getting frequent reports of elevated lead
blood levels from firing range employees or users, Colorado public health
officials tracked 17 members of a law enforcement trainee class during
and after a three-month period of firearm instruction at a state-owned
indoor firing range.45 Despite the fact that a new ventilation system
was installed early in the study, the researchers found levels of lead
in the range's air 40 times those set in the applicable federal Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) safety standard. According to
a study author, those levels were low compared to other indoor
ranges examined by Colorado public health officials. None of the 17
trainees had elevated blood levels before the class, but 15 had elevated
levels after the training, eight of those above the OSHA threshold requiring
medical monitoring.

Private firing ranges
in Colorado all refused requests by the researchers to test blood levels
of their patrons. But the researchers concluded that "frequent users
would be at risk for developing elevated blood lead levels and adverse
health effects from the lead exposure."46

Risk to families
and other third party nonparticipants. Because lead dust settles
on clothing, shoes, and accessories worn or used at the range, the families
of persons who work at or use firing ranges are also subject to "take-home"
exposure to lead dust.47 This can cause secondary lead poisoning, particularly
in children.48

This risk may not
be obvious, but it is no less real—shooters can even contaminate their
children's clothing by washing them together with the clothes they wore
to the range. "If you take your clothing home, you actually contaminate
the family clothing when you wash it (together)," a New Hampshire police
captain and range instructor warned.49

A 1996 National
Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) lead health hazard
evaluation of firing range activities at the FBI Academy's Firearms
Training Unit found significantly higher levels of lead in the carpets
of the dormitory rooms of FBI students as compared to the rooms of nonstudents.
The study concluded, "FBI students may be contaminating their living
quarters with lead," and that "a potential problem of ‘take-home' lead
exposure of families of firearms instructors was found."50

Persons who spend
time in the same building in which a firing range is located will be
exposed to lead dust from the range unless special precautions are taken.
These include totally isolating the range's ventilation system from
the rest of the building and ensuring a negative air pressure in the
range so that lead dust does not escape into adjacent offices or work
areas, in which a positive air pressure should be maintained to keep
lead dust out.51 In any case, lead residue from inadequately designed
old ranges may still be found in building air ducts long after the range
has been retired.52 This risk is especially acute in the case of firing
ranges located within schools, a topic addressed in more detail below.

Air exhausted from
an indoor shooting range can also threaten third parties. For example,
a day-care center in Clearwater, Florida, was forced to close and the
children were required to have blood tests after it was discovered that
a neighboring indoor shooting range was venting lead-contaminated air
into the center's playground area. Lead levels just outside the range's
exhaust fan were found to be 8,000 times higher than the acceptable
level set by the Pinellas County's Department of Environmental Management,
and those in the soil near the border between the range and the daycare
center were about 40 times the acceptable level. The proprietor of the
private shooting range was reported to be "shocked" by the revelation,
arguing that the ventilation system had been inspected by health officials
10 years earlier when the range was built.53 (As is described in more
detail below, poor maintenance of such ventilation systems is a major
problem for indoor ranges.)

Construction employees
who work on firing ranges may also be exposed to lead contamination,
especially since they may not be aware of the danger when working in
older buildings. California health officials have seen "some serious
lead poisoning cases among construction employees engaged in demolition
of a firing range, as well as among these employees' children."54

Exposure of
Children at Indoor School Ranges. Given the vast amount of effort
devoted to protecting children from lead in paint in recent decades,
it may come as a shock to parents to learn that schools all over the
country are exposing children to lead contamination from indoor firing
ranges.j Yet using shooting ranges to get children and youth involved
in the "shooting sports" is an integral part of the gun industry's survival
strategy, described in more detail in Appendix A. The National Rifle
Association supports the gun industry's overall range survival strategy
by helping to underwrite school shooting ranges. In Illinois alone,
for example, the NRA increased grants for school shooting ranges from
$7,844 in 1995 to more than $23,750 in 1998.55

Cover, Insights,
April 1996

Unfortunately, many school administrators appear to be oblivious to
the threat that lead from shooting ranges presents to the health of
the children under their care—until after a problem is discovered. For
example, officials in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, learned of lead
contamination at six high school shooting ranges only after one
student had a routine blood test unrelated to the shooting program and
was found to have elevated lead levels. When blood tests were given
to other students in the program, they were also found to have elevated
blood lead levels. As a result, the rifle ranges were closed.56

Similarly, lead
contamination at an indoor shooting range in the basement of an elementary
school in Lynbrook, New York, was discovered only after a parent raised
the issue of lead contamination with the school superintendent. "I decided,
innocently, to have an air test, expecting to be able to stand up and
say the range had a clean bill of health," said the school official.
"I got the results and was shocked. I made the decision to close the
school, shut down the range and begin the cleanup."57 The revelation prompted
state officials to advise all schools with such ranges to have similar
tests done, and two other schools with firing ranges were subsequently
temporarily closed.58

Growing public concern
with gun violence and an especial distaste for the mix of firearms in
schools after such tragedies as the shootings at Columbine High School
in 1999 have forced the closing of some school shooting ranges.59 A New
Jersey school board shut down an indoor range that had been inconspicuously
operated by an adult gun club under an elementary school after a group
of boy scouts wandered into the range from the school gym.60 Although
the danger of exposing elementary age children to lead has been well
documented by public health experts, range supporters insist on maintaining
ranges in schools.

But even after school
ranges have been shut down, they may continue to poison students. For
example, when the Louisville, Kentucky, school system tested for lead
at sites in 20 schools slated for renovation, it found lead contamination
at a school rifle range left over from an old ROTC program that had
been shut down years earlier.61

Bad management,
poor facilities. The primary causes of the dismal record of
shooting ranges in lead contamination and other health matters are ignorance,
bad or indifferent management, and antiquated facilities.

These problems are
no secret within the gun industry. For example, the Boston-based Strategic
Planning Institute found in a recent report outlining a gun industry
survival strategy for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF)
that "a large majority of shooting facilities in the country are not
professionally managed, commercial operations."62 Similarly, a major supplier
of shooting range equipment, Caswell International Corp., was reported
in 1989 by the NRA's American Rifleman magazine to have found
that "a lot of people trying to get in on a shoestring" in the shooting
range market were "cutting corners on costs that resulted in substandard
ranges in terms of safety, environmental concerns and cleanliness."63
An engineering consulting firm specializing in shooting ranges notes
in its promotional materials that the increased attention to lead contamination
and human health exposure "has put range owners and operators into areas
outside of their expertise."64

Even the most well-designed
indoor range demands constant and sometimes expensive attention in order
to keep delicately balanced air filtration systems working effectively.

FrontPage Magazine
web site at www.frontpagemag.com, downloaded April 20, 2001

Outdoor Shooting Ranges

Just as shooters
at indoor ranges fired away for decades ignorant of the public health
risks, so have outdoor range shooters poured millions of tons of lead
downrange, ignorant (or heedless) of the damage they have been inflicting
on the environment. Although human lead poisoning is less of a problem
at outdoor ranges, negative effects on the environment are far greater.
Lead bullets and shot used in outdoor shooting ranges present at least
three dangers to the environment:

poisoning of
wildlife, especially waterfowl, that ingest lead pellets;

contamination
of ground water, poisoning wells and other water sources; and,

contamination
of wetlands or waterways into which lead falls.

Shotgun shell casing,
wads, and assorted packaging materials can also contain lead, chemicals,
and other materials potentially harmful to the environment.65 For example,
certain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons found in clay targets are said
to be known carcinogens.66 (It is worth noting that shotgun shooters rejected
a biodegradable clay target Winchester tried to market because it discharged
white smoke when hit rather than the black smoke they were used to.)67

Dealing with these
problems is complicated by the esoteric nature of the state and federal
laws and regulations protecting the environment.k Several key issues
of federal environmental law have been roughly focused in a handful
of shooting range cases litigated to conclusion. But the NSSF notes
that the relatively low number of reported law cases is not a true measure
of the activity going on because "many shooting range cases are resolved
in the early stages of litigation through consent orders under which
the ranges agree to close down and perform further environmental investigations
and cleanup at the range."68

Three federal laws
have been found to be especially relevant to outdoor shooting ranges:
the Clean Water Act (CWA),l the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(RCRA),m and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and
Liability Act (CERCLA or "Superfund").n Other federal laws may apply
to a particular case, and state protections may be more stringent than
the applicable federal laws.

The Clean Water Act (CWA)

The Clean Water
Act makes it unlawful for any person to discharge "pollutants" from
any "point source" into waters of the United States without obtaining
a permit, called a "National Pollution Discharge Elimination System"
(NPDES) permit.

Two leading federal
cases have held that lead shot and target debris (shattered clay pigeons)
are "pollutants," and the trap shooting stations at shooting ranges
are "point sources." Therefore, any range from which patrons shoot out
over "Waters of the United States" must have an NPDES permit. This is
a stringent requirement because "Waters of the United States" is broadly
defined to include virtually all rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, drainage-ways,
wetlands, and similar features, even those on private property, and
it appears that, at least to date, no NPDES permit has ever been
issued to a shooting range.69

Long Island Soundkeeper
Fund, Inc. v. New York Athletic Clubo involved a private trap shooting
range at which spring launchers were used to toss clay targets out over
Long Island Sound. Shooters fired at the clay targets from concrete
platforms. Acting on a lawsuit brought by two public interest groups
interested in preserving the Long Island Sound environment, the court
ruled that "shot and target debris" generated by the shooting range
constituted pollutants, and that the range was a point source. It is
noteworthy that the court ruled that even though the club had switched
to the use of steel shot, the shot was nevertheless a pollutant for
purposes of the CWA. The club elected to discontinue the discharge rather
than seek a permit.70

Stone v. Naperville
Park District settled a dispute over a trap-shooting range in Naperville,
Illinois.p The range was reported to have dumped as much as 230 tons
of lead over 50 years of use on a small patch of land in a park near
a high school.71 The controversy began when neighbors became concerned
about possible lead contamination of ground water and wells. Although
state officials indicated they would allow the range to continue operation,
federal officials expressed concern about lead pollution, especially
noting two ponds on the site.72 Eventually the court ruled, consistent
with the New York Athletic Club case, that the range's operations
fell under the CWA and barred shooting until an NPDES permit was obtained.
Although city and park officials have pressed for a permit, it seems
clear that it will not be issued, certainly if lead shot is used.73

It is almost certain
that many other shooting ranges across the country are operating without
permits required by the CWA. This is particularly true when the shooting
range is located on or near wetlands or waters such as rivers or creeks,
or where the range allows the natural flow of rain or runoff to carry
lead contaminants into such waters or even into groundwater.74

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)

RCRA established
a "cradle to grave" regulatory scheme for the treatment, storage, and
disposal of solid and hazardous wastes. The leading federal case in
the field is Connecticut Coastal Fishermen's Association v. Remington
Arms Co., Inc. The first such suit against a private range, it resulted
in the closing of the Lordship Gun Club in Stratford, Connecticut, operated
by Remington Arms Company.75

The Lordship trap
and skeet range was located on Long Island Sound, directly across the
mouth of the Housatonic River from two wildlife refuges. According to
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, "After nearly 70 years
of use, close to 2,400 tons of lead shot (5 million pounds) and 11 million
pounds of clay target fragments were deposited on land around the club
and in the adjacent waters of Long Island Sound."76 A 1987 study documented
acute lead poisoning in 15 of 28 black ducks captured in the area.

Concerned about
the effects of the range's operations, the Connecticut Coastal Fisherman's
Association filed a lawsuit against the range, citing the CWA and RCRA.
The case eventually wound up in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals
which made three significant rulings:

The CWA complaint
was moot because the range had suspended operations and was unlikely
to resume. In short, past violations will not support a CWA suit so
long as it appears that operations have been permanently suspended.

Under EPA's regulations
and interpretations, shooting range operations do not constitute "discarding"
a hazardous waste, and therefore do not require a permit.

However, the
deposited lead and potential target debris do constitute hazardous
solid wastes that present a substantial threat to the environment.
The range was therefore subject to another provision of RCRA requiring
remediation and cleanup, even though the range had ceased operations.

As a result of this
ruling, the range closed and Remington agreed to clean up both the lead
and clay target waste.

According to NSSF,
several other ranges have been charged with violating CWA and RCRA,
but most either went out of business, settled out of court, changed
their shooting direction, or switched to non-toxic shot.77

One of the peculiarities
of these laws, as interpreted by the EPA, is that so long as a range
is being used, the lead and other toxic materials it dumps into the
environment are not considered as being discarded or abandoned. Shooting
ranges are therefore not required to get the permits that, say, a landfill
or toxic dump would be required to have if it wished to deposit the
same material.

However, a range
that is closed or abandoned triggers specific liabilities for lead and
other toxic materials deposited on the land during shooting operations,
since it is then considered to be "abandoned waste."78 The reported transport
of lead waste to landfill dump sites by some range operators also could
subject them to any future "superfund" liabilities of the disposal sites,
according to the NRA's range development manager.79

Cleanup costs can
be substantial: New York City reportedly paid a Canadian company $25
million to clean up a police shooting range in the Bronx. Company officials
found the prospects of such work in the United States "promising," estimating
that there were about 28,000 such potential cleanup sites in the country.80
The cost of cleaning up abandoned ranges often comes as a shocking surprise
to new owners or to government units that operate or sometimes inherit
the property in question. In some cases, governmental units simply continue
the fiction that the abandoned range is still "in service" in order
to avoid paying the costs. The following are representative examples
of cleanup cases:

As part of a
consent decree, current and past owners of a former Playboy Club property
in Wisconsin agreed to pay the U.S. government $1,000,000 in cleanup
costs for contamination from a trap and skeet shooting range. The
contamination at the abandoned site was discovered after 200 geese
died of lead poisoning. The federal government was reported to have
spent $1.75 million for cleanup as of the time of the agreement.81

The State of
Massachusetts inherited a cleanup problem when it acquired a former
resort that included a skeet shooting range.82

Port Richey,
Florida, was hit with a $50,000 cleanup bill after it learned that
a children's play area called Totsville had been designed and built
by a well-meaning volunteer on a site that had formerly been a city
firing range.83

Port Salerno,
Florida, was stuck with a $400,000 cleanup bill when tests of a proposed
development site revealed contamination from an abandoned shooting
range formerly used by the sheriff's office.84

Crystal River,
Florida, dodged cleanup costs by simply fencing off a shooting range
area, keeping it in limbo between its former use as a pistol range
and any new use. Should the city decide to make use of the parcel,
which one council member compared to an abandoned nuclear site, it
would have to pay for the cleanup.85

Brea, California,
was sued by the owner of a parcel of land it leased for use as a firing
range. The owner complained that the property lost value and that
165 tons of soil had to be removed as a result of lead contamination
after 25 years of use.86

Bay Village,
Ohio, city officials abandoned cleanup plans when they saw a price
tag of $600,000 to clean up an estimated 150 tons of lead blasted
into Lake Erie over several decades by a private gun club. The federal
EPA looked the other way. "Why invite trouble?" said one city official,
who admitted he was aware of the court ruling in the similar Connecticut
Coastal Fishermen's Association case.87

These and other
abandoned range cases pose a serious question for communities with existing
or newly proposed range operations: who will pay the cleanup bill when
the shooters have moved on?88

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

The National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) established a national scheme to control and minimize
the impact that federal government actions—including tax-subsidized
activities—have on the environment. Prominent among these is the requirement
that an environmental impact statement (EIS) be prepared for any major
federal action that might significantly affect the quality of the human
environment.89 No one appears yet to have explored whether, given the
extensive federal assistance extended to the gun industry for its shooting
range programs, certain federal agencies—such as the Fish & Wildlife
Service—should be required to develop such plans.

Other Major Pollution Sites

A number of other
shooting range environmental horror stories can be found in news reports
from all over the country. The following are a few representative examples:

Westchester County,
New York, entered into a consent decree with the EPA to clean up contamination
from lead and targets at its Sportsmen's Center, located next to an
elementary school. EPA sued the county under the imminent hazard provision
of RCRA.90 The case prompted NSSF executive Bob Delfay to complain,
"Lead is a four-letter word these days."91

Illinois environmental
officials got a toxic double whammy when it turned out that the backstop
of a rifle range originally built for the 1959 Pan American Games
was made of asbestos waste. In addition to lead pollution problems,
officials learned that the asbestos had simply been bulldozed into
Lake Michigan, then later recycled onto a public beach as part of
dredging operations.92

A former skeet
shooting range in Delaware earned the title "Harbeson Dead Swan Site"
when it was designated a federal Superfund cleanup site after 41 dead
black-billed tundra swans, victims of lead poisoning, were found by
two bird watchers. The kill was reportedly one of the highest ever
recorded for tundra swans. Federal taxpayers paid for the estimated
$200,000 cleanup cost. The EPA originally tried to hide ownership
of the site after a meeting with the owners was arranged by Senator
Joseph Biden (D-DE), but relented under media pressure.93 Taxpayers
were also slated to pay the $250,000 cleanup costs at another private
skeet-shooting range on Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware.
"[T]he club doesn't have the money," the organization's treasurer
said. "I'm sure it would bankrupt us."94

e) Skeet, trap,
and sporting clays are variants of an activity in which a circular disc
is hurled, usually mechanically, simulating the flight of a game bird
within sight of the shooter, who is armed with a shotgun. The object
is to react quickly and accurately enough to hit and shatter the disc,
sometimes called a "clay pigeon," with shotgun pellets.

f) The U.S. military
was reported to have closed more than 700 firing ranges as of August
1999 due to lead contamination, and taken major steps to clean up and
prevent further contamination at others. "Army shoots for safe environment
with tungsten bullets," American Metal Market, August 26, 1999,
4. Although beyond the scope of this study, the military's approach
contrasts with the head-in-the-sand attitude of many civilian range
owners and operators.

h) Each round of
ammunition is composed of four parts: (1) a bullet, or pellets in the
case of a shotgun round, seated in (2) a cylindrical shell casing (or
case), within which is (3) a charge of gunpowder, and (4) a primer,
seated in the base of the case. The firing pin strikes the primer, made
of a highly explosive compound, which explodes and in turn ignites the
gunpowder. The burning gunpowder creates gas pressure which expels the
bullet or pellets from the casing and through the barrel of the gun.

j) About 500 schools
nationwide are reported to have rifle teams, although it is not known
how many of them use indoor ranges. Frank Eltman, "School rifle teams
in spotlight amid spate of school shootings," The Associated Press
State & Local Wire, 22 November 1999.

k) The National
Shooting Sports Foundation advises its members: "Should a range manager
be notified that the range may face legal or regulatory action involving
environmental issues, they should immediately notify or obtain legal
counsel. Because environmental laws and regulations are extremely
complex, it is often advisable to enlist the aid of counsel with specific
experience in environmental law, particularly with experience in defending
shooting ranges." National Shooting Sports Foundation, Environmental
Aspects of Construction and Management of Outdoor Shooting Ranges
(Newtown, CT: NSSF, 1997), I-4 (emphasis in original).

The Violence Policy Center is a national non-profit educational foundation
that conducts research on violence in America and works to develop violence-reduction
policies and proposals. The Center examines the role of firearms in America,
conducts research on firearms violence, and explores new ways to decrease
firearm-related death and injury.